Coffins keep ticking

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By Carole Winters

Pontiac Daily Leader - Pontiac, IL

By Carole Winters

Posted Feb. 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By Carole Winters
Posted Feb. 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Chenoa, Ill.

“Fixing grandfather and antique clocks is like playing a chess game,” said Willy Coffin of Willy’s Tick Tock Clock Shop, 500 1/2 Gerrard St. in Chenoa. “Anybody can learn to play the game, but you have to really study the game to be good.”

Willy and his wife, Crystal, fix and sell clocks from their shop and an Internet business.

“To fix a clock, you can study how a clock works, but a person needs to have the right tools, know where to find the right tools, know where to research each variation of a clock, know how the parts of a clock run, know where to buy the parts, know how to make some of the parts, know how to oil a clock, know how to clean a clock, and know the history of clocks,” Coffin said.

Coffin grew up around clocks. His grandfather, Mahlon Miller, collected clocks, but he did not repair them professionally. Willy watched his grandfather build a clock when he was around 7 and to this day, it is his favorite clock. This influence was the reason why Coffin went into the clock repair business.

Later in life, Coffin’s cherished clock stopped working.

“I went to eight different clock shops to try and get it fixed. People could oil it and clean it, but they did not know how to repair the clock. After I finally found a jeweler who knew how to successfully repair the clock, that person went as far as to say that he really hated working on clocks. It was the reason why I decided to learn how to repair clocks. I learned the trade by obtaining and reading many books on clock repair, watching training videos on the subject, practicing on many clocks and movements purchased on eBay and developing relationships with mentors.” Coffin said.

“I also joined a worldwide organization of clock and watch enthusiasts that have local chapters that meet all over the country. I attended local chapter meetings and met lots of other people who also have a passion for collecting and restoring antique clocks. It was a great resource. The National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors have a library, a college and a museum in Pennsylvania. At the time I learned my trade, there were only six universities offering this program in the country. The closest used to be at Bradley, but (the program) closed in 1962.”

“Most graduates of university programs go to work in factories, like Rolex, and do not enter the clock repair trade.” he added.

Throughout the years, Coffin has gathered his tools of the trade from eBay, auctions, and material clock supply catalogs.

“Many of the tools used in this trade are not being manufactured any longer and have to be found from watchmaker/clockmaker estates.”

Page 2 of 5 - Neither of the Coffins started out to become watch and clock repairmen. Originally from Leland, Willy Coffin attended Illinois State University and graduated from the University of Illinois with a health services administration degree. He served as the administrator for several nursing home facilities in central Illinois, including Livingston Manor. He began to fix clocks part time. In 2004, Coffin realized that he needed to go full time, as business was expanding beyond part-time capabilities. In 2009, he began teaching his wife how to repair clocks. She views herself as an “apprentice,” and thinks she still has a lot to learn.

“To work with clocks, you have to have or develop patience and be somewhat inventive,” Crystal Coffin said. “For instance, we had a problem because I couldn’t feel the rough ridges in the pivots that protrude through the clock plates. The reason was that my nails are thicker than Willy’s and I can’t feel them as well. We had to find a way for me to be able to determine the roughness. A friend uses a magnifying loop in his business and now I use one and am able to do that task successfully.”

Crystal said she is used to working with her hands, as she used to follow her father around in a wood shop as a child. As an art major, she loved anything to do with art and working with hands-on things. She has also learned how to cane chairs, make stained glass pieces, quilt and decorate cakes.

“I would love to learn how to weld! I just like learning anything new. I believe we should never stop learning.”

She graduated from Eastern Illinois University with a degree in psychology and had a career working with people living with disabilities.

Where Willy enjoys “what makes a clock tick (sorry, pun intended),” Crystal enjoys the clock’s personality. They do seem to operate like a “well-oiled team” (OK, I will stop — soon).

Both love the stories behind the clocks.

“Most of these antique clocks have seen a lot of history. Each clock has its own character and its own story,” she said.

Coffin enjoys working on cuckoo clocks, too.

“Most of the early cuckoo clocks were not made in factories, but instead made by individual people. Many farmers in the Black Forest region of Germany would design and carve these cuckoo clocks during their off season and then sell them to tourists,” Coffin said. “The tradition of handmade cuckoo clocks continues today. Only cuckoo clocks that are hand-carved in the Black Forest region of Germany are considered to be ‘authentic’ cuckoo clocks. Currently there are six manufacturers of authentic Black Forest cuckoo clocks. One of the largest, Anton Schneider, employs over 50 master carvers. The music box tunes in a cuckoo clock are very nostalgic for people. It is a specific sound that you just can’t get with other clocks.”

Page 3 of 5 - Coffin is a master of clock trivia.

“We have all heard of the nursery rhyme, ‘Hickory, Dickory, Dock, the mouse ran up the clock’ … There is some truth to this rhyme. The older, tall case grandfather clocks that date back to the 1800s or earlier had movements that were made of wooden gears and wooden plates, rather than the brass and steel used in the construction of more modernized clock movements. The keeper of the clock would apply bacon grease to the gears to keep the delicate wooden teeth from drying out and breaking. The mice, (loving the taste of bacon), would go up into the clock and dine on the bacon grease applied to the clock movements and gears,” Coffin said.

Who knew?

Coffin can also tell you about the first mechanical clock, created around 1275. “No specific person is credited to making the first clock — we do know it was someone who knew a lot about mathematics. Someone had to know how many gears were needed to make a gear train, how many teeth would cause the minute hand to go around once every hour and the hour hand to go around once every twelve hours and the second hand to go around every minute. During this time, the only person or persons known to have the mathematical knowledge and the time to ponder such things were monks. An Italian monk is credited with creating the first mechanical clock.” Coffin said.

“Many of the earlier clocks had wooden clock movements. The holes in the wooden clock plate had bushings made of bone. Bushings are the holes that the gear pivot turns in the clock plate. Each end of the gear has a pivot that protrudes through a hole drilled into both sides of the clock’s movement plate. Simply drilling a hole into a wooden plate created too much friction to turn the gears and would wear out in a short time. Bone was used to make more than bushings. Bone was carved to make cuckoo clock hands and numerals as well. The type of bone used was usually from a whale’s pelvis.”

The Coffins view clocks as more than just mechanical timepieces. To them and to others, they are sentimental pieces of family lore. “My mother has a grandfather clock that she calls ‘Old Bullet Hole.’ The story behind the clock is that it originally stood in a saloon in the ‘Wild West.’ A gunfight occurred in the saloon and a bullet sailed right through the face of the clock. The glass was replaced, but the bullet hole is still there,” Coffin laughed.

“When people trust you with their family heirloom, they may be apprehensive at first, but when they see that we can get their clock running again for the first time in a long time, you gain their trust. We get letters, pictures and Christmas cards from some of our customers years after we repaired their heirloom clocks. It can be quite touching.”

Page 4 of 5 - It is never a dull moment in the clock business. Crystal relates the story of a woman who called the shop crying that her grandfather clock fell over on her.

“We were worried that the clock was still on her and she should have been calling 911. As it turns out, she was OK, but very upset about the clock falling while she was pulling up the weights and couldn’t get it back up off the floor.”

Another time, they purchased a truckload of watch repair tools and miscellaneous equipment, and several emerald-cut rubies fell out of an envelope. They took the rubies to a gemologist and found out, to their dismay, the rubies were synthetic.

“It was exciting for a while,” Coffin said.

Clocks have an interesting past as well as an interesting future.

Coffin added that mechanical clocks and grandfather clocks have not lost popularity in today’s technology-based world.

“There have recently been quite a few characters in movies and television shows, who were clockmakers, or that display many nice, antique timepieces, such as ‘Grimm’, ‘Heroes’, ‘Hugo’ and ‘Downton Abbey.’ Did you know that the angel in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ was a clockmaker?”

“There are some really nice battery-operated clocks out right now,” he added. In their showroom, Coffin has clocks that are called “motion clocks,” and imitate the motion of a ship rocking, dials that move and break apart, or have numbers that physically rotate whenever the clock chimes. These clocks also play melodies and have settings for Christmas carols.

“I find that clocks are very relaxing. The chimes migrate through the house,” Coffin said. He finds the ticking of a clock most relaxing, while his wife isn’t quite so fond of the ticking, but enjoys the chimes.

Their clock shop has an interesting selection of clocks available to buy, but if visiting the shop is not your thing, the Coffins’ have a website where you can browse a large selection of clocks for sale. Go to www.willygoodclocks.com.

“We don’t stock all of the clocks featured on our website, but we try to show only those clocks that we know are available. We get frequent reports from our vendors regarding their stock availability.”

The Coffins have some steadfast rules for doing business.

“We tell everyone everything up front, so there are no surprises. We give an estimate and we pride ourselves on not charging over that estimate. We tell everyone how long it will take to fix their clock. Right now, we have a lot of work in our shop.”

Page 5 of 5 - Willy’s Tick-Tock Clock Shop is a factory authorized service center, with a two-year repair guarantee. They will also do watch battery changes.

For more information, email info@willygoodclocks.com. before time runs out (OK, I will stop now).